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A study of more than a thousand women has found that females who smoke are more likely to develop major depression.
Heavy smokers - those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day - have almost double the risk of developing diagnosable depression than non smokers.
It has long been known that people with depression are more likely to smoke, but this longterm study is one of the first to suggest the habit may be triggering mental illness.
University of Melbourne researchers tracked healthy women for more than a decade, giving them a psychiatric assessment at the end.
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A North Little Rock man who lost his wife of 49 years to lung cancer celebrated a victory Friday after hearing that a federal appellate court upheld a jury verdict that a cigarette company was to blame. "Obviously, I’m in pretty good shape for a rainy day," said Henry Boerner, 74, whose first wife, Mary Jane, died at age 69 in 1999. . . .
A three-judge panel of the 8 th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upheld a May 2003 verdict by a federal jury in Little Rock that heard the Boerners’ lawsuit against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.
In the first trial in Arkansas pitting an individual plaintiff against a tobacco company, jurors awarded Mary Jane Boerner’s survivors $4,025,000 in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages. Jurors found that the cigarette company’s predecessor, American Tobacco Co., defectively designed Pall Malls and failed to warn smokers about the dan- gers of cigarettes before 1969, when the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act went into effect.
While upholding the verdict, the 8 th Circuit panel reduced the punitive-damages award to $5 million. That reduced the total award to $9,025,000 from $19,025,000.
But Boerner didn’t complain
[T]he evidence indicates that American Tobacco manufactured, marketed and sold Pall Mall cigarettes containing excessively high levels of carcinogenic tar and lacking effective filter technology, for and in the state of Arkansas; untruthfully represented that cigarette smoking did not cause cancer; and actively attempted to suppress research into the harmful health consequences of cigarette smoking.8 th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the Boerner case.
the evidence indicates that American Tobacco manufactured, marketed, and sold Pall Mall cigarettes containing excessively high levels of carcinogenic tar and lacking effective filter technology, for and in the state of Arkansas; untruthfully represented that Pall Mall cigarettes were not unhealthy; untruthfully represented that cigarette smoking did not cause cancer; and actively attempted to suppress research into the harmful health consequences of cigarette smoking. The jury could reasonably have determined, based on this evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, that American Tobacco acted with a conscious disregard for the safety of others. . . .
B&W contends that a punitive damages award in this case would not advance the policy objectives underlying the rule allowing for punitive damages and is therefore inappropriate. To support this contention, B&W argues as follows: the purpose of punitive damages is to punish the wrongdoer; the wrongdoer no longer exists in this case and no individuals who were in leadership positions at American Tobacco are in similar positions at B&W; and, accordingly, that there is no wrongdoer to punish. We are not persuaded. Punishment is only one of the policies underlying punitive damages. Deterrence is another.Accordingly, given the $4,025,000 compensatory damages award in this case, we conclude that a ratio of approximately 1:1 would comport with the requirements of due process. Thus, we conclude that the punitive damages award must be remitted from $15 million to $5 million. . . .
We conditionally affirm the judgment entered on the verdict, subject to Boerner’s acceptance of a remittitur judgment on the punitive damages award in the amount of $5 million. Absent his acceptance of the remittitur, we reverse and remand for a new trial on the claim for punitive damages.
A jury's award of 15 (m) million dollars in punitive damages to the family of a woman who died after decades of smoking has been restored. The punitive damages were restored in an order filed Friday by the same federal judge who had earlier disallowed the punitive award.
U-S District Judge James M- Moody also denied a request from the defendant, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, for a directed judgment in the company's favor, or a new trial.
On May 23rd, a federal jury in Little Rock ruled that Brown & Williamson should pay $4.25 million in actual damages plus $15 million in punitive damages. . . .
After the judgment was rendered, Brown and Williamson asked Moody to strike the punitive damages, and he did so on July Second. The plaintiffs asked him to reconsider, and he did so Friday, reversing himself.
Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. has posted a $4.25 million bond while it appeals a jury award in a lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died after decades of smoking.
U.S. District Judge James Moody ruled Thursday that the company does not have to pay the $4.25 million judgment while its appeal is pending, but must assure that the money is available to be paid if the appeal goes against the company.
On May 23, a federal jury in Little Rock ruled that Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. should pay $4.25 million in actual damages plus $15 million in punitive damages for the smoking-related death of Mary Jane Boerner of North Little Rock, Ark.
A federal judge has eliminated $15 million in punitive damages that a tobacco company was ordered to pay the family of a smoker.
U.S. District Judge James Moody signed an order Wednesday granting a request by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. to nullify punitive damages awarded in May for the death of Mary Jane Boerner.
Moody also upheld the compensatory damages award of $4.25 million.
Brown & Williamson, the nation's third largest tobacco company, had sought the order primarily on grounds that it was liable only for compensatory damages since it had simply acquired American Tobacco Co., which made the Lucky Strike and Pall Mall brands that Boerner smoked.
In the first such trial in Arkansas, a federal jury in Little Rock heard attorneys argue Tuesday about whether Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes caused a North Little Rock woman’s death from lung cancer in 1999. If the jury decides that Mary Jane Boerner’s cancer was indeed caused by smoking the unfiltered cigarettes for 36 years, it must then decide if the company is responsible for failing to adequately warn the public for many years about the now well-known dangers of smoking.